The bayonet has been an infantryman's additional weapon from earliest times and, in fact, is an outgrowth of the pike, the first infantryman's weapon. The bayonet has evolved, changed in length, changed in method of attachment and other details through the years without significant improvement. Bayonets have had a primary function in close hand to hand combat affixed to the barrel of the basic military rifle.
Recently the need has been recognized for a multipurpose bayonet which must serve the functions of a bayonet, a military field knife, a combat knife and also a sawing and wire cutting instrument. These requirements have been recognized in recent U.S. military specifications such as Mil-K 70606 Mar. 21, 1986.
Some of the requirements tend to be contradictory in the design parameters. For example, a bayonet with a sharp blade which maintains its sharpness tends to be brittle and subject to fracturing if used as a prying tool. A bayonet which is long for greater reach on a rifle becomes unwieldy when used as a knife. A bayonet with a suitable sharp edge for cutting barbed wire becomes dulled after repeated use and can not cut cables by mere sawing action alone.
It has been proposed to use a bayonet blade when pivotally interlocked with a rigid scabbard similar to that disclosed in my design patent application Ser. No. 766,101 filed Aug. 15, 1987 as a scissor type wire cutter.
Such an arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,842,458 of R. E. Bauer. The scabbard is releasably connected to a belt by a clip of the type disclosed in the U.S. patent of Bianchi U.S. Pat. No. 4,690,315 issued Sept. 1, 1987. The Bauer patent describes prior bayonets of that type which use a notched cutter plate on the scabbard and an unnotched blade as unreliable since the wire or cable to be cut may slip out of the scabbard plate notch. The Bauer patent proposes the use of a notched hardened steel blade cooperating with the notched scabbard plate as the solution to the wire slippage problem. The Bauer patent further discloses the blade as keyed to the scabbard during cutting operation.